Today's more sophisticated printers possess capabilities far beyond those of printers produced only a few years ago. With the widespread use of intranets, business printers are now frequently capable of being networked so as to be accessible to any other device on the network. Consequently, a user can send a print job to any printer within his or her office, but also to any printer accessible by the user's network, regardless of its location.
Beyond networking, many of today's more sophisticated printers incorporate large amounts of memory, such as hard disc drives, for storing documents. This permits actions such as stored jobs and multiple original printing, or MOPying, as developed by Hewlett-Packard. After a document is submitted to the printer, it is rendered into a format that the print engine is capable of translating into a printed page. Then the data representing the rendered document can be printed at that time and/or saved in the printer's memory as a stored print job. Once saved, one or more users can approach the printer at a point later in time, recall the document from its memory, and print out one or more “copies” of the document.
Depending on the content of the document, security measures preventing access to it may be desired. For instance, a user generates a document containing sensitive and confidential financial information that should not be seen by the general employees or general public. Either by choice or necessity, the printer available to the user is at a different location than the user, such as across the room, in a different room, or even on the other side of the building. The user does not want the document to come out of the printer before he or she is physically present to retrieve it. Consequently, the user designates the document to be stored in the printer.
Alternatively, consider a scenario where the same user is responsible for generating a monthly financial report that only designated executives should have access to. The user could print out the report and forward a hardcopy to each of the executives, or could direct the report to the printers associated with each of the selected individuals to be either printed or stored. In any case, there is the risk of the report being seen by unauthorized personnel.
Current security measures involve the “locking” of a document and the use of a personal identification number or PIN. A user assigns a PIN to a document. The document file is then placed in a locked state when saved within the printer. Any attempt in the future to print the document requires the user to know the appropriate PIN associated with it. If an incorrect PIN is entered, the printer simply will not print the document.
Although the requirement of a PIN in order to print a document may be acceptable in situations where casual security measures are sufficient, it is insufficient in situations where more strict security is required. This is due to the fact that both the document and its associated PIN are both stored within the printer. A person with the appropriate knowledge could tamper with the printer and retrieve the PIN, thereby acquiring the capability to print the document. Alternatively, the document itself could be lifted off of, or copied from, the printer's memory. This may circumvent the PIN-based security system altogether, allowing the document to be viewed or printed elsewhere.